


This Action Will Have No Echo

by Bibliophile_13



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 20:59:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16794643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliophile_13/pseuds/Bibliophile_13





	This Action Will Have No Echo

Kaz didn’t make a habit of meeting anyone’s parents. Saints, he hardly even remembered his own. Meeting Colm Fahey was nothing but fate, and had nothing to do with him in the slightest, but this, this was nothing short of a miracle. It was a miracle that Inej’s parents were here in the first place. It was a miracle that she wanted him to meet them. It was a miracle that he had agreed.

The day was one for miracles.

Kaz walked warily behind Inej, her black hair flying behind her in the wind, her feet still silent against the harbor as she ran to her parents. They embraced, all three of them, and Kaz felt an unusual pang. Whether it was because Inej was with her parents, or because he no longer had any real family of his own, or because this was surely one of the last times he would ever see her, he wasn’t sure.

Inej and her parents separated, speaking in rapid Suli. Kaz felt slightly out of place- it was such a personal moment. Such a happy one. I shouldn’t be here, he thought. I should go.

“Kaz!” said Inej suddenly, turning to him. “Would it kill you to smile once and awhile?” she said in Kerch. Her parents laughed- Kaz supposed they understood both languages.

“Inej,” said her mother in Kerch, “who is this young man?”

“Kaz Brekker,” said Kaz, holding out a hand, suddenly incredibly aware of the bare skin.

Inej’s mother, then her father, shook his hand. It was the barest of touches, but he almost fainted right then. But he saw Inej pleading with him, begging him to hold on out of the corner of his eye. So he did. With her, he would always hand on. Saints, the problem was really that he wouldn’t let go.

“Kaz saved my life,” said Inej. “He took me out of the Menagerie.”

“The… Menagerie?” said her mother, frowning.

Kaz started. _Inej,_ he thought. _What are you doing?_

Inej swallowed. “A pleasure house. He saved me,” she repeated. “And it’s because of him that you’re here.” Inej was looking at him, not her parents, and he met her gaze willingly. He glanced away for a split second and saw two pairs of eyes dancing between the two, matching smiles on their faces. Kaz tightened his grip on his cane and moved his gaze back to Inej.

Suddenly, a hand gripped his shoulder, softly. “We…” Inej’s mother cleared her throat. “We are very grateful.”

Kaz turned his full attention to her and her husband. “You shouldn’t be,” he said. “I took her out of the pleasure house, but I put her in a place not much better. Inej owes me nothing.”

“Kaz-” started Inej.

“If Inej says you saved her,” said her father, speaking for the first time in heavily accented Kerch, “you saved her.”

“And,” added her mother, “she said nothing of owing.”

“Inej does not owe me,” he repeated.

“Then what of this, Kaz? This ship? My parents?” Inej’s voice was deadly quiet, a whisper as quiet as a wrath and calm as the ocean. “What of when you saved me from Jan van Eck? What of when you placed that net?” Her parents frowned at mention of a net, but Inej plowed on. “Give one good reason why I don’t owe you.”

_Because you keep me alive. Because you give me a chance. Because you still see good in the world, in me._

_Because I love you._

“Because you’ve saved my life too, Wrath.”

Inej’s parents seemed confused, but that stopped Inej, if only for a second. She knew how hard it was to get Dirtyhands to care about you.

“Of course,” she whispered, even softer than before. If her parents heard, they decided to ignore it.

“Either way,” said her mother, removing her hand from Kaz’s shoulder, “we are grateful.”

He swallowed. “Thank you.”

Inej’s father, who had been watching Kaz carefully the entire time, turned abruptly and said something to Inej in Suli.

“Kaz,” said her mother, trying to fill in the silence. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“That’s very young,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Not as young as Inej, and she’s one of the best in the business.” He frowned. Did she know?

“Inej told us,” she said, as if reading his mind.

“When?”

“Just now. Before she asked you if it would kill you to smile.”

Kaz frowned. Some of the first words Inej had spoken to her parents in years were about… him?

Her joyous smile faded slightly as she looked at Kaz longer. “Treat her well,” she whispered. “She deserves the best of them.”

“I- we aren’t like that,” said Kaz quickly.

She burst out laughing, a sound so similar and yet so different from Inej’s that he almost thought it unnatural. “Well, how would you define your relationship then?”

That was not what Kaz was expecting. “She’s my Wrath,” he said finally.

“Hmm.” Inej’s mother paused. “If you ever are like that, I will embrace you with open arms. Do you know why?”

“No idea.”

“You care,” she said. “More than perhaps even we do. Do you know how I know that?” she asked, looking Kaz straight in the eyes.

“No,” he said, voice a whisper.

“You said she was yours. Without any of that… what’s the word. Violence. My Wrath,” she repeated. 

Kaz knew he should deny it. He knew he should shoot down the idea. But he couldn’t.

He didn’t accept it, but he couldn’t deny it either.

As soon as Inej left the harbor, Kaz went with her. Then, when he started to the Crow’s Club, she went with him. They didn’t talk, but he could sense her behind him, silent, as he walked.

“Kaz,” she said finally, as they approached the Crow’s Club.

“Inej.”

“Why no gloves?”

He paused, then turned behind him slightly to look at her. “I needed to know.”

“Know what?”

_That I care about you. That I’ll always try, for you. That I’ll-_

“No,” she said softly. “Forget it. I don’t need to know.”

And they were silent. Kaz, after all, was certainly not going to offer up an answer if she was no longer asking.

They reached the Crow’s Club, stopping in front of the door. “I’ll see you, Brekker.” she said.

“No mourners.”

“No funerals.”

Perhaps it was a terrible good-bye, but Kaz didn’t know what else to say. Inej lately seemed to take every rational thought from his brain.

Kaz watched as she walked away, then called out, “Wrath!”

She stopped and turned, question in her eyes. So Kaz limped toward her, his cane the loudest noise on the empty street, the seconds seeming like hours as he closed the distance between them.

Soon he was standing in front of her, knowing that this was a terrible decision and wanting to do it all the same.

Kaz took a deep breath. “This is what I needed you to know.” 

And he kissed her, slow and sweet. First his head crowded with memories, but then he opened his eyes and saw Inej, leaning forward, leaning into him, and every thought but her vanished.  
He closed his eyes again and brought a bare hand up to her cheek as he drew away. “Let this action have no echo,” he whispered, voice more hoarse than usual.

She blinked, once. “ _Mati en sheva yelu._ This action will have no echo.” 

And so Inej slipped into the shadows once more, leaving Kaz to stare after where she had been until the sun dipped in the sky and Kaz came close with it- his action would have no echo.


End file.
